changes is an independent consultancy specialising in community engagement, community development and active citizenship. Look under 'services' for a full list of what we do.
Based in the West Midlands, we work across the UK and Europe offering expertise in facilitation, training, research, evaluation and consultancy.
We work with public, community, voluntary and private sectors.
Use the search facility on the top right of our home page to search our website, including our archives.
This popular course explores what community engagement is and how to ‘do it better’. It considers the social and policy contexts of community engagement, issues and challenges as well as different approaches to community engagement. Participants are encouraged to share ideas, issues and strategies with others wanting to get to grips with community engagement.
Participants from the last community engagement course we ran said:
"Excellent. Very accessible and grounded in practical experience"
"Made me reflect, think and evaluate what my work is trying to achieve"
"Good fun .. sociable"
Running as part of our 2008 Training Programme on themes relating to community empowerment, this course will run on 7th October in Birmingham. Cost is £120+VAT
Download a booking form
What does active citizenship mean, why is it important to policy makers and communities and how does it link to community engagement? How can we encourage and support people to be active citizens? How can we move to a more energised, authentic democratic society?
Running as part of our 2008 Training Programme on themes relating to community empowerment, this course will run on 23rd September in Birmingham. Cost is £120+VAT
Download more information here ... and a booking form
changes recently undertook a piece of research to explore and develop a framework for public agencies to use to consider how open they are to community influence. We have called the framework 'echo' to reflect its relationship to our 'Axis of Influence'.
echo recognises the restrictions that may be in place for these agencies and so includes an aspect which considers their 'potential to respond'. Our experience suggests there is huge interest in this and you can download a copy of the research report here.
An 8-page handy guide called 'What is Community Empowerment' which has been written specifically for Local Authority Officers. The guide uses the 5 Community Empowerment Dimensions featured in the DiCE framework to explain what community empowerment is and to illustrate what it means in practice. Funded by the National Empowerment Partnership and produced jointly with the Community Development Exchange, the guide is available to download here: What is community empowerment.pdf. If you like the guide, you might be interested in the full framework: DiCE: Planning & evaluating community empowerment & community well-being, download our newsheet with more information or - contact us for details.
‘The axis of influence’ is a tool which helps community groups and networks to assess and improve the influence they have on agencies and partnerships. The ‘axis’ plots existing capacity to influence against how influential the group feels. It can be used to: assess and monitor community influence, prompt discussion and debate within groups and help plan how to become more influential.
Feedback from a recent training participant:
"The Axis of influence will come in useful to inspire groups to think through their approach to the way they influence others. It will also be very helpful to use the indicators with [the] Community Network to help build confidence amongst members of the network".
In April 2008 CDX published our handy guide to the Axis of Influence - you can download a copy here: handy guide
Contact us to find out about the support we can offer to groups who want to have a go with the axis, or
Talk to us about commissioning a course for people in your area who work with community groups and networks to learn about the axis and how to use it
The ‘axis of influence’ has been developed with groups and networks in Dudley since 2005. After working with the axis, people have said things like:
"We’ve made real progress - I can see great possibilities for the future - real potential to make a real difference"
"Working with the Axis of Influence has helped us to recognise some of the things we need to focus on to become more influential and we are developing an action plan to address these".
changes consultants have been involved in developing the Take Part Learning Framework for active learning for active citizenship.
It is available to view and/or download – just click here: Take Part framework
The Framework has been designed to:
It is for learning providers, educationalists, trainers and facilitators, policy makers, funders, community workers and planners who want to:
The framework was developed by Jill Bedford (changes), Helen Marsh (London Civic Forum) and Dave Wright (Exeter CVS), following a two year pilot, Active Learning for Active Citizenship, funded by the Home Office. IMPACT! Women Active in Community and Public Life – mentioned elsewhere on this website - was the Black Country hub.
There is a power gap in our institutions and workplaces. Women are much less likely than men to reach the top of their professions. Only 10% of directorships of FTSE 100 companies are held by women. In today’s workplace requesting flexible working can still spell career death for many women. Instead they often have to ‘trade down’ when they take on caring roles and then lose out on the top jobs.
When it comes to political representation the situation is no better. Currently less than 20% of MPs are female, and at the current rate of change it will take up to 200 years to achieve an equal number of men and women in the Westminster Parliament.
For certain groups of women, for example ethnic minority women, their representation is even lower.The power gap needs to be closed, with true representation for all groups of women, including ethnic minority women, disabled women, lesbians, and women of all ages and faiths. Shared power would be an important sign of gender equality - it will show us that we have managed to complete the social revolution
In 2007- 2008 changes undertook research for the Government Equalities Office to produce guidance on models, approaches and resources which can be used to encourage, equip and support women who are currently under represented, to become more active, both formally and informally, in governance structures and other aspects of both civic and civil life.
This work followed on from the work that we had been involved in as part of Take Part.
Where Take Part started.....In 2004 the Civil Renewal Unit (now part of the Department of Communities and Local Government) set up the Active Learning for Active Citizenship (ALAC) programme, bringing together seven regional ‘hubs’ all based on existing community learning programmes.
The hubs took very different routes to ‘citizenship learning’, yet shared similar values and principles: social justice, participation, equality, diversity and cooperation. The programmes were all about creating opportunities for people to use their knowledge and capacity to shape their lives and their communities. It is widely acknowledged that many people feel disengaged and unable to exert influence on the wider world they live in; they support democracy as a principle but do not see or feel it in action in their everyday lives.
The regional hub organisations who took part in the pilot have formed the National Take Part Network and created the Take Part Learning Framework to share their good practice and guidance for other learning providers.
changes has been involved in this work from the beginning through the West Midlands/Black Country Hub and we have produced an evaluation of our work on ‘Impact! - Women Active in Community and Public Life’ programme (available in pdf format)
CLICK HERE FOR A COPY OF THE IMPACT EVALUATION REPORT: evaluation (8 pages; 237kb)
CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL REPORT ON WOMEN, LEADERSHIP, PARTICIPATION & INVOLVEMENT: leadership (30 pages; 928kb)